Bob Eschbach receives Simon-Edgar Statesmanship Award

Anyone even remotely familiar with or connected to the city of Ottawa knows what Bob Eschbach has meant to its community.

Now, that knowledge is making its way around the state of Illinois.

Eschbach, an Ottawa native who served as its mayor from 1999 to 2019 and has since remained a pillar of the community through his work with a variety of civic organizations, has been chosen by Southern Illinois University-Carbondale as its 2024 recipient of the Paul Simon-Jim Edgar Statesmanship Award.

“It’s pretty special. I guess people around the state have heard about Ottawa. It speaks well for the city and what’s happened here. I’m very honored.”

—  Bob Eschbach, Paul Simon-Jim Edgar Statesmanship Award recipient

The award is presented annually to an elected state or local government official in Illinois who has demonstrated a pattern of public service characterized by vision, courage, compassion, effectiveness, civility and bipartisanship.

This is the first time the award has gone to a local official and not someone at the state level.

Eschbach received the honor Tuesday from former Illinois Gov. Edgar and John Shaw, director of the SIU Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, at the Edgar Fellows program’s annual dinner in Champaign.

“It’s pretty special,” Eschbach said. “I guess people around the state have heard about Ottawa. It speaks well for the city and what’s happened here. I’m very honored.”

Current Ottawa Mayor Robb Hasty was pleased but not surprised that another honor has been bestowed on his friend and mentor, agreeing that Eschbach has been “a great example for civil servants everywhere.”

“Bob still likes to tease me a bit by picking my brain and giving me little nudges here and there, and they’re always appreciated,” Hasty said with a smile. “He is a wealth of information and someone who no one can argue has his heart in the right place.

“I think anyone who has lived, worked and been a part of our community for the last 25 years knows the commitment Bob has had to the city of Ottawa. If you think back to what Ottawa looked like, especially the downtown back in the 1990s, and compare it to today, and look at the five years since (his term as mayor) and his commitment with the different foundations and organizations he’s been a part of, it had to be an easy decision for those folks to make in giving this award to Bob.”

Eschbach, a graduate of Ottawa High School, Illinois Valley Community College and Illinois State University, earned his law degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

He returned to Ottawa and not only got involved in several volunteer causes involving environmental protection, historic preservation and downtown and neighborhood revitalization, but he also served on the Ottawa Planning Commission, zoning board and historic preservation commission before eventually being elected mayor.

During his multiple terms in that office, Eschbach first helped the city – at the time struggling with job loss and a deteriorating downtown – to devise its first comprehensive plan. He later submitted a revised plan that in 2016 won the American Planning Association’s Daniel Burnham Award.

He also worked with several colleagues on a floodplain plan that earned national honors.

His work led to the beautification of the city, an increase in jobs, a revitalized downtown and the development of the riverfront, as well as the development of festivals and cultural events.

That effort was recognized by America in Bloom with a special award for the “most dramatic transformation of a downtown streetscape.”

Eschbach was a founding member of the Starved Rock Country Community Foundation and serves on the board of Landmarks Illinois, the Ottawa Reddick Mansion Association, the Canal Connector organization, Valley Immigrant Advocates, the Ottawa Historical and Scouting Heritage Museum and the Ottawa Center for the Arts.

“At a time in which there is great frustration about politics at the national level and considerable fear about politics in the international arena, it’s important to recognize that energetic and positive leadership is happening in towns and cities across Illinois,” Edgar said. “Mayor Eschbach has been a consequential leader in his community, combining a long-term vision with the practical skills needed to bring people together and get results. The mayor united his community, and together they have revived and rebuilt Ottawa.”